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YEAR BOOK |
Science Foundation Ireland
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Science Foundation Ireland - progress in 2003
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Achievements in 2003:
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�234m has been committed in research investments all based on international merit review.
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One hundred and twenty-eight researchers and their teams (totalling more than 700 scientific or engineering researchers) have been recruited to or retained in Ireland because of SFI research investments. All award recipients were selected after a process of international peer review of their proposals.
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The Foundation is now established on a statutory basis following the signing into law of the Industrial Development (Science Foundation Ireland) Act, 2003 by the President of Ireland, Mrs. Mary McAleese on the 14th of July, 2003.
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SFI Vision 2003-2007: People, Ideas and Partnerships for a Globally Competitive Irish Research System has been launched. This outlines the vision, mission, strategic focus, operational philosophy and award programmes of SFI. The document also lists specific goals through to 2007 for the Foundation. It provides measurement metrics to judge whether these have been achieved. This is available for download from http://www.sfi.ie
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The first SFI Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology (CSETs) have been funded. For more details see: First three Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology (CSETs) selected for funding by SFI.
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Twenty-three distinguished visiting researchers have been selected to come to Ireland for periods of up to one year under our E.T.S. Walton Visitor Awards programme. This programme offers the opportunity of building links between Irish research institutions and their counterparts around the world.
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Twenty-one major international scientific workshops and conferences have been approved for funding in Ireland by SFI.
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SFI Fellows-Research Professorship programme will assist Irish research institutions in attracting outstanding scientists (SFI Fellows) to their institutions from outside the state. For more details see: About the SFI Fellows-Research Professorships programme
About our award programmes
SFI's funding award programmes are as follows:
The SFI Fellow Awards. These are for researchers with exceptional records of accomplishment. These grants normally range up to �1.0 million per year for up to five years.
SFI Investigator Programme Grants. These are for outstanding researchers and normally range from �250,000 up to �1.0 million per year for four years.
E.T.S. Walton Visitor Awards. These awards bring international researchers to Ireland for periods from three months to up to a year.
SFI Workshop and Conference Grants. These grants support events sponsored by or involving Irish scientists and research bodies and which will reach an international scientific audience. These grants range up to �50,000 per event.
SFI Research Professors. For more details see: About the SFI Fellows�Research Professorships programme
SFI Centres for Science, Engineering, and Technology, or CSETs. For more details see below.
First three Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology (CSETs) selected for funding by SFI
The CSET programme is designed to build a critical mass of excellence for Ireland in areas of BioT and ICT that could well shape the future of science and engineering.
The first recipients of CSET grants, totalling �42m over the next five years, are Prof. Dieter Fensel, who comes to Ireland from Austria; Prof. Dolores Cahill, who is returning to Ireland from the Max Planck Institute in Germany and Prof. Fergus Shanahan, who is based at UCC.
The three recipients will collaborate with world-leading research corporations and some of Ireland's most promising biotechnology and ICT companies. These include HP, Servier, Surgen / Aventis, Protagen, Allegro Technologies, Alimentary Health, Procter & Gamble and Teagasc, Ireland's agriculture and food development authority.
They were selected following a rigorous assessment of more than twenty competing applications. International experts led the review, scrutinising areas such as the potential research quality, collaboration, intellectual breadth and integration of research and education. The goals of the winning researchers are as follows:
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Prof. Fensel will work with HP to build the Digital Enterprise Research Institute of the National University Ireland (NUI) Galway. They will research the technologies that will underpin the next generation of the World Wide Web, specifically intelligent software that can significantly improve information retrieval from the Internet and personalise web applications.
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Prof. Cahill and her team, in partnership with Servier, Surgen/Aventis, Protagen and Allegro Technologies, will study technologies and proteins that can successfully treat cardiovascular diseases at the Royal College of Surgeons' National Centre for Human Proteomics in Dublin.
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Prof. Shanahan, at University College Cork, along with collaborators at Teagasc in association with Alimentary Health Ltd. and their partner Procter & Gamble, will lead the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in researching gastrointestinal health and treatments for gastrointestinal diseases.
About the SFI Fellows�Research Professorships programme
The Research Professors programme is a flexible mechanism to empower Irish third level and public research institutions to attract senior, world class researchers (normally with at least 10 years of independent research experience) from outside the country to Ireland. These research leaders will have a record of accomplishment that is internationally acknowledged for its significance. Achievement should be recognised via established metrics in their respective fields and might include memberships such as the Fellows of the Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences or US National Academy of Engineering or The European Molecular Biology Organisation. They will have been successful in attracting competitive research funding to their programmes over a long period.
For more details, see Grants and Awards section of our website at www.sfi.ie .
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Find out more, or apply for a grant at www.sfi.ie.
Contact: Se�n Murphy, Manager,
Communications and Public Relations,
Science Foundation Ireland, Wilton Park House,
Wilton Place, Dublin 2; Tel: +353 1 607 3249;
E-mail: [email protected] ; Web: www.sfi.ie